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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Teaming up cancer therapies appears to be the ticket to survival for women with early stage breast cancer. New research shows women who receive both chemotherapy and tamoxifen end up living longer than those who receive tamoxifen alone.
The same could not be said, however, for combo therapy with tamoxifen and ovarian suppression treatment, which stops the ovaries from functioning, except in a small subset of younger women with estrogen-positive cancers. More research in this subset of women is needed, note the researchers, to determine whether this combo treatment might be best for this group of women.
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The British results are based on two studies; the first compared nearly 2,200 women who were assigned to receive either ovarian suppression along with tamoxifen or tamoxifen alone. The second compared roughly 2,000 women who received tamoxifen alone or tamoxifen plus chemotherapy. Some younger women in that study also received ovarian suppression treatment.
The authors believe their results point to the need for more study on breast cancer treatments, and they especially emphasize the need for longer-term follow up to gauge the impact of these therapies on overall survival, noting overall survival benefits did not become apparent in their study until five years following diagnosis.
In an accompanying editorial Kathleen Pritchard, M.D., from Toronto Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Centre, suggests researchers should also be more diligent about taking the estrogen status of womens tumors into account when conducting these studies.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
SOURCE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, published online April 3, 2007
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